FROM THE INTERNAL MARRET TO ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION. FUNCTIONAL SPILLOVER AND THE POLITICALLY FEASIBLE
This thesis is a case study examining European monetary integration from the initiative (1988) through negotiations of an EMU-Treaty (1991). The analysis is devided in two parts:
The first part explains why EMU was put on the agenda and how EMU was brought to the negotiation-table. We find Lindberg/Scheingold's model of system change ("Europe's Would-Be Polity", 1970) relevant, and put emphasis on functional spillover and leadership as important explanatory factors.
The second part explains how a politically feasible solution could be achieved in the negotiations. We limit the analysis to four "pivotal" actors (France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom). Given the rule of decision-making, the interests and relative power of these four actors, we examine the possibilities for obtaining an integrative solution in the negotiations. The interests and feasible solutions are measured in terms of degree of decision-making power in the EC-system.
Our data (actor-interests) have been systematically collected from 1989-91. The main sources have been official documents as well as statements and comments in Agence Europe, the Economist and other journals.
We found that the internal market with the establishment of a common capitalmarket gave the functional argument for EMU. However, compatible perceptions of interest in the French and German leadership was critical for the follow-up of EMU.
Once preparatory work and negotiations got started, it was clear that Germany was "pivotal" for obtaining any substancial solution on EMU. The preferance for a common solution within the EC-system gave furthermore the four actors the necessary formal power to press through their specific interests as to a binding timetable (France), "opt-out" from parts of the common solution (United Kingdom), commitments to side-payments in the next budget-reform (Spain) and institutional reform in a federal direction in the EC-system (Germany).
With a reservation on the part of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain where able to find an integrative solution in the negotiations. This solution will, in terms of decision-making power, lead to a substancial increase in the common decisionmaking power of the EC-system with a federal monetary system and an economic system with binding decision-making although with national implementation of the common policy.